Russia and Iran pledged to increase cooperation on nuclear power engineering, oil and gas Thursday at a meeting between Alexander Dondukov, minister for industry and technology, and Iran's visiting energy minister Habibollah Bitaraf, Interfax reported.

The Russian minister's press secretary quoted the Iranian minister as saying that the volume of joint projects, worth some 500 million dollars (547 million euros), was inadequate and fell short of both countries' potential.

"Iran is interested in furthering cooperation with Russia primarily in the nuclear power engineering sphere as well as in oil and gas shipments," said spokesman Vadim Lazutin.

Bitaraf hailed the high quality of Russian power-engineering equipment and expressed his wish that more Russian businesses would bid for power-engineering construction projects at international auctions, Lazutin told the news agency.

Dondukov said that with Russia's potential, it would soon be able to fully complete projects from concept to construction.

On Monday, Bitaraf met with counterpart Alexander Gavrin, who said that Russia's expertise could be used to build high-voltage transmission lines for Iran, Interfax reported.

"The transmission lines would be build with an eye to possible incorporation into the international electricity infrastructure," said Gavrin.

Restoration of the unified electricity system in the Trans-Caucasus along with parallel operations with Russia's UES, would make it possible for Russia to export electricity to Iran, he said.

"Joint implementation of power engineering projects is a good opportunity to ensure long-term orders for electricity-generating companies and to create more jobs," Gavrin said.